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JR RESPONSE TO THE 
ENTHUSIASMS 
OF THE SPIRIT. 


A SERMON PREACHED IN THE SOUTH 
CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH, OF NEW 
BRITAIN, CONNECTICUT, ON THE 13TH 
OF NOVEMBER, 1904, BY THE PASTOR, 
REV. 020RA S. DAVIS. 


Published by a Member of the Congregation. 











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“Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, 
Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? 

Then said I, Here am I; send me 

Isaiah vi : 8. 

There are holy times when the soul is tuned 
and quivering to the winds of God. These are 
the critical moments of life. Then we are made 
or undone as children of the Father. The splen¬ 
dors of earth lie tarnished and tumbled before 
us; the king in his glory is dead. The richer 
splendors of the God victorious over human dis¬ 
aster unroll before us. Then we stand face to 
face with reality and opportunity^ The en¬ 
thusiasm of the spirit waits its hatai hour in the 
soul. What of the soul’s response? Duty and 
destiny are determined by the way in which we 
answer the enthusiasms of the spirit. 

I have said “enthusiasms”; and before I go 
farther let me attempt to rescue that word from a 
certain suspicion and reproach which it has gath¬ 
ered to itself in your thinking. “Enthusiasm!” 
We have been taught to be verv careful about 
that. Enthusiasm is so rash, so headstrong, so 
careless of consequence! It has made so many 


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blunders, wrought such havoc in ancient tradi¬ 
tions, and left so many dead on the field where 
it has dared to lead charges contrary to the coun¬ 
sels of -the prudent! Were it not better to use 
some other word for this something that was 
astir in the very depths of the young Isaiah’s be¬ 
ing, and is astir in the life of to-day as it never 
has been before? No, I think not. This word 
enthusiasm is a very sacred word when we come 
to understand just what its content really is. 
We must seek its meaning far back in the springs 
of Greek poetry. There we read of men and 
women who were possessed by a divinity—in 
them a god spoke and moved—they were en¬ 
thusiasts. This is the primal content of the term. 
It represents the human spirit in its loftiest 
moods; it stands for a man at his best. God is 
energetic in the enthusiast; enthusiasm is divine 
movement within the ranges of the human spirit. 
If it has shattered human traditions, it is be¬ 
cause the divine was no longer in them. If it has 
propelled men to die with seeming rashness, it is 
because this central passion is greater and holiei* 
and far more worth the saving than the earthly 
life of any human spirit. Enthusiasm is simply 
divine passion moving in human endeavor. It is 
the saving force energetic in modern life. I am 


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convinced that even the material world itself will 
be construed ultimately in the terms of centers of 
enthusiasm rather than in the terms of material 
atoms. Indeed, the material construction is fast 
passing away if it is not already gone. 

We need this divine possession of the soul to¬ 
day in the whole sphere of our living. Not ma¬ 
chinery, not money, not organization; but life, 
passion, possession, divine in source, in control, 
and in direction—oh, that is what our modern 
world, standing in the temple where the angels 
are even now singing their Thrice-Holy, must 
have! It is the new ideal, the greater consecra¬ 
tion, to which we are called to-day. The sounds 
of the divine inquiry are all about us; “whom 
shall I send and who will go for us?” 

To man in his economic distress—to this young 
giant, suddenly awakened, lialf-staggering yet 
between his slumber, still heavy, and his growing 
consciousness of strength—who shall go to mod¬ 
ern industry with words of sane counsel and 
hands outreached in genuine helpfulness ? 

No amount of academic theorizing will answer. 
The industrial revolution, out of the thick of 
which we are not yet wholly come, cannot be 
understood by those who speculate regarding the 
action, under any set of conditions, of an 


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“economic man.” No scheme of mechanical 
adjustment yet brought to light is adequate. The 
program of the agitator does not reach to the 
limits of the problem. There must be a prophet’s 
vision and a lover’s zeal for this great problem 
of economic justice and good-will. Shortening 
hours, increasing pay, sharing profits—all these 
are devices of expediency. The vision to see the 
essential relationships between labor and capital; 
the love that shall bind them both together— 
these are the true solvents. These, however, are 
the product of human enthusiasm. Nothing less 
than the genius of such insight and devotion will 
rise to the level of social politics. The economic 
problem will be solved by men, not by schemes. 
Human brotherhood must become a reality 
through human service. It will be men going 
for God, men sent by the divine to the human, 
men possessed by the enthusiasm of Christ—it 
will be these alone who will solve the industrial 
problem and reconstruct the social order in the 
terms of love and fraternity. 

To man, in his social and moral stress, to 
humanity seeking new institutions and confused 
and baffled in the search, who will go, and whom 
can God send? 


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Once more it is not a matter of changes in so¬ 
cial conditions which concerns us. We are all 
grown somewhat perplexed by this battling from 
one side to the other of the questions of environ¬ 
ment and personality as determinant forces. 
Why not cease trying to eliminate either term of 
our proposition? Of course the conditions by 
which a person is surrounded enter into the 
formation of character. Most sure it also is that 
a man by sheer force of personality ever trans¬ 
forms and creates his environment. Both facts 
are essential. For moral transformation we do 
not need external changes primarily; we need 
inner renewals. It is a man breathing the very 
spirit of God who must go to-day into the thick 
of the fight for social righteousness. 

In the last interview which Dr. Steiner had 
with Tolstoi, the great man said: 

“The Kingdom of God is within you, and you 
are to be the pattern after which the kingdom of 
this world is to fashion itself. Young man, you 
sweat too much blood for the world; sweat some 
for yourself first. You cannot make the world 
better till you are better.” (“Tolstoi the Man,” 

309-) 

That is profound insight. The fundamental 
problem for you and me is that of personal en- 


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thusiasm, of our own posession by the Kingdom 
of God ere we go out to construct the Kingdom 
of God among men. ,We cannot make the 
world better till we are better. Jesus did not 
propose a new politics for His countrymen; He 
did not attempt a new social structure; He never 
destroyed the moral system of His time save as 
He transcended it. He lived a life, impressed 
His soul, gave Himself, transmitted an enthusi¬ 
asm. On this He rested the future of His King¬ 
dom upon the earth. The modern age, in its 
moral uncertainty, waits for exactly this revela¬ 
tion. It must be personal with us. We can 
make the world better only by becoming, better 
ourselves. 

To man in his spiritual darkness and mis¬ 
fortune, to the yearning, aspiring, struggling 
human spirit, with its holy hunger's and its cease¬ 
less outreach for light and strength, who will go 
and whom can God send? 

Once more, no dead, impersonal set of doc¬ 
trines can save this living humanity. Why offer 
the man who seeks for bread a stone any longer? 

Men are not looking to the churches now to 
see the exact content of their creeds; they are 
gazing with eager eyes to discover what the 
church has experienced, what it feels and knows 


and realiz.es. The enthusiasms of the Christian 
people are the new defense of the Christian faith. 
The modern world is somewhat in the dark about 
the abstract terms of theology; but it understands 
love and sacrifice and honesty and faith. If you 
will study what Jesus said about the final judg¬ 
ment you will be impressed by the universal com¬ 
prehensiveness of its canons. Helping a poor 
man, caring for a sick man, encouraging a de¬ 
feated man—every living being knows without 
being told what that means. It means love and 
faith and courage and enthusiasm. It means a 
living man, possessed by God, doing something 
to clear up spiritual darkness and dread. Those 
are the canons oT the last assize. 

I am anxious to say no word that will convey 
any sense of slighting the venerable and the 
necessary creeds and institutions through which 
the divine life has expressed itself in the past. 
But the need of to-day is for something deeper 
than this; it is for vision, it is for insight, it is 
for passion. We must have God-possessed men; 
but not in places of isolation, not in cells and 
monasteries. We must have God-possessed men 
side by side with their fellows in the world’s 
markets, in the factories, in the heat and heart of 
the struggle. Who tells us that God’s voice can- 


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not be heard in the hum of the world’s work? 
Would he have us then forget that the hum of 
the world’s work is also the voice of God? The 
word that finds response to-day is the word of 
passionate enthusiasm. It is sometimes rash 
and it sometimes loses balance; but it goes to the 
point and it wins the soul. 

In the Des Moines “Register and Leader” of 
October 21, 1904, there was an editorial in which 
the writer defines the peculiar personal power of 
Dr. Hillis. 

“Dr. Hillis is in one important and vital par¬ 
ticular much more logically the successor of 
Henry Ward Beecher than Dr. Abbott, in that he 
possesses spiritual insight-H:hat peculiar faculty 
that inspires true eloquence, eloquence being an 
appeal to man’s consciousness and moral sense, 
through intuition rather than through reason. 
Dr. Hillis at his best knocks at the innermost 
door and issues the irresistible call, just as Beech¬ 
er at his best did, while the theologians, and 
arguers and debaters are on the sidewalk dis¬ 
cussing whether they are at the right house.” 

Concerning the comparative judgment here 
expressed I have nothing to say; but I do like 
that strong figure. The man of enthusiasm has 
already found the door, knocked, and delivered 


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his message, while the man of caution and pru¬ 
dence is standing without on the sidewalk, won¬ 
dering if he is before the right house. Insight 
and enthusiasm are needed in giving the message 
to the spirit of man, from the Spirit of God. 

Thus I have outlined three avenues of mission 
which, I think, the times demand that we Chris¬ 
tian people rise and run upon. To man in his 
economic stress, in his moral perplexity and in 
his spiritual darkness, who will go for God? 

The crux of the problem which the text pre¬ 
sents is not the question, it is the reply. The 
heroism of the text lies in the young Isaiah’s an¬ 
swer to the call of the God of service. 

This is the point which I must make most em¬ 
phatic. The soul of the young man answered 
the call of the Divine. 

If there is one paramount source of dis- 
heartenment for us to-day it is this, the lethargy 
and indifference of the human spirit in the pres¬ 
ence of the problems of the day and the calls of 
our Christ to serve them. The saddest words 
I hear are not, “It might have been.” The sad¬ 
dest words I hear are these, “Let well enough 
alone; I do not care.” It is before this mood 
that I stand in despair. All the clarion notes of 
duty sounded in vain; all the divine incentives 


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proffered without response; our dull clay not 
moved upon by the creative spirit because we will 
not answer its touch—oh, this indifference, this 
listlessness, this selfish, reprehensible carelessness 
—this is the most solemn and serious indictment 
of our Christianity to-day! 

This is a matter in which we must deal with 
our own souls frankly. You may not hear the 
call of the Christ of to-day so clearly as another- 
person may hear it; but you cannot, you cer¬ 
tainly cannot, fail to be conscious of it to some 
slight degree. I am not wrong in assuming that 
just now every one of us in this room is conscious 
of a call to us, personally, for service to the so¬ 
cial or moral or spiritual need of life somewhere. 
We cannot delegate it; we cannot hire another 
man to do it for us. The shame of our modern 
failure is just here; we put our contribution 
with smug content into the envelope and think we - 
are so wholly Christian because, we have helped 
send our minister and our missionary in our 
stead. The gift is good, indeed. The only dif- 
. ficulty with our giving is that it does not go deep 
enough. Not one in fifty of us gives to the limit 
of real sacrifice. The gift cannot take the place 
of personal service—this is the point which I 
wish to make. You must complete the donation 




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in the envelope by the gift of yourself. Nothing 
less will serve the Kingdom of our Christ. 

The new day is dawning, unless the signs 
along the horizon fail the watcher on the walls. 
Its watchword is not mechanical methods of 
charity, or formal services of ritual and worship, 
or salvation by delegated missionaries. If I read 
the signs truly, this new day is even now calling 
for the dedication of manhood to the needs of 
man in the spirit of the great brother, Christ; 
for the personal service of neighbor to neighbor 
after the manner of the Master’s parable of the 
Good Samaritan. Its call is the call of the text— 
not what new method, what new organization, 
what new device—but “Who will go?" that is, 
what new person will give himself even here in 
loving dedication to this new personal saving 
force of the Kingdom now coming among men ? 

At the last analysis, therefore, my text is not the 
record of a heroic episode in a young man’s life. 
It is no unknown and far-off prophet who stands 
in the presence of the unspeakable glory and 
hears with ravished soul the songs of the ser¬ 
aphim crying “holy." It is yourself, it is I, who, 
in this holy temple, where God is being unveiled 
even in the Autumn’s glory and the beat of 
hammers and the throng of living men, stand 


Lof G. 


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upon our feet and hear, unless we stop our ears, 
the very Infinite uttering itself, ‘‘Whom shall I 
send and who will go for us?” It is the en¬ 
thusiasm of the Spirit. A nobler day never 
dawned for man than this; the holy city is de¬ 
scending; brotherhood is making progress; all 
the cry about a Godless world is false. God is 
here; this Spirit over us is the Spirit of God. 
What shall our answer be? What can it be less 
than this, as, in a new consecration, as persons 
and as churches, we bow our ready hearts and 
say, “Here am I; send me.” 















NOV 88 1904 































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